Analyzing Evil: The Mad Dog

Written by Damien Rudy

October has arrived, and with spooky season’s coming and going I tend to think about stories. Not necessarily creepy stories, but stories nonetheless. Many stories are vastly different from one another, but one thing they all seem to have in common is an antagonist; a villain.

Every great story has a villain. Villains have the songs, quotes, and devious actions that draw audiences into the story. Most villains tend to follow tropes and there are near infinite ways to categorize villains. Some tropes you may have heard of include but are not limited to, The Femme Fatale, The Monster, Nature, The Bully, The Counterpart, The Corrupted, The Tragic, etc. 

In this article, I will be analyzing characters that go into the trope I call, The Mad Dog. These villains are monsters unleashed upon the world to unleash chaos and follow their instincts; to do what they want to do. Oftentimes, these villains are under control until someone unleashes them, like a general sending their strongest and most overzealous soldier or a mobster hiring the wrong man to kill someone. These villains are often chaotic, unpredictable, and hyper aggressive, doing whatever action their instincts guide them to in the moment in almost inhuman ways, unwavering towards their single minded goal. 

Some examples of the Mad Dog include Conquest from the animated series and line of comics, Invincible, The Joker from various DC movies, shows, and comics (however I will mostly be looking at The Joker from The Dark Knight as opposed to other iterations), and The Frenzied Flame from the videogame Elden Ring. 

In the second season of the show Invincible, we are introduced to the Viltrumite known as Conquest (voiced by Jeffrey Dean Morgan). After his introduction he proceeds to wreak havoc while explaining his intentions. He explains that he isn’t there for the purpose one would assume, spreading the “love” of The Viltrum Empire, but instead that he, “Enjoys this.” Conquest explains that he was sent there to quell any rebellion on Earth so that the planet may be subjugated by the Viltrumites, but after the protagonist (Invincible) fights back, Conquest explains his true intentions of sadistic and cruel murder and destructive chaos. And so the hound is set upon the world, and spreads more chaos than intended (not that his leader minds). 

The next villain I would like to go over is a classic: The Joker (played by Heath Ledger), specifically the one from The Dark Knight. Such an iconic villain, The Joker is an embodiment of chaos and a lovely example of The Mad Dog. In the 2008 film directed by Christopher Nolan, The Joker is paid to kill Batman by a group of mobsters. After he is unleashed upon Gotham, he decides to kill people every night until Batman reveals his identity, which he delivers on. As the film continues, The Joker escalates his killings, targeting more and more important people. Eventually though, the hit backfires on the mobsters. After The Joker collects a massive pile of money from the mobsters as payment (Summing up to half of the mob’s total money, I was unable to find the exact amount, but rest assured, it is an absolutely massive fortune), The Joker burns the money, showing he cares not for the payment of his work, and kills the mobster with his own hounds. 

The Joker (Played by Heath Ledger) burns the money earned from the mobsters

The Joker is let off the leash by the mobsters and mauls everyone in the city including his employers. Harming everyone and everything for whatever reason the mad dog could find. 

One final example will be a brief one, as I am unsure many people will understand this reference: The Frenzied Flame from the videogame, Elden Ring, is one final example of the mad dog trope. The Frenzied Flame simply wants to get a foothold in the world, so that it may burn and destroy everything. Plain, simple, and true actions of a mad dog who has seen too much suffering to want anything to be left in its wake. 

Overall, the mad dog trope breeds some of the most dangerous and destructive villains. Mad dogs have an almost inhuman level of dedication to what they deem as their purpose, being similar to a force of nature. These masochistic creatures are let out of Pandora’s Box and after being released, their actions can scar people and remake the very world.